Celebrating SFNW's 750th Tiny House! Mayor Announces New South Park Village!
- aaronl67
- 3 hours ago
- 3 min read
On May 7th, the Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI) had the honor and privilege of joining our partners at LIHI’s Hope Factory to celebrate Sound Foundations NW’s (SFNW) construction of their 750th tiny house! At the event Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson announced the creation of a new village in South Park to be built by LIHI with private funds raised by Challenge Seattle.
At the 750th Tiny House Celebration the speakers included Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, King County Executive Girmay Zahilay, LIHI Executive Director Sharon Lee, SFNW Director of Operations Steve Roberts, and SFNW Board President David Means. All the speakers shared remarks on the important nature of this work, and how much effort it takes behind the scenes to build tiny houses. The cost of donated labor alone for each tiny home is conservatively estimated at $8,000.
King County Executive Girmay Zahilay was the first to make remarks to the excited crowd. “Each of these tiny homes represents something so powerful, and that’s a second chance for our neighbors who have been living out on the streets. Building these 750 homes took 132,000 volunteer hours.”
Mayor Wilson announced the funding of a new tiny house village proposed for South Park that is part of her shelter surge to create 1,000 beds/units in 2026. LIHI was selected to develop and operate this new village with 90 tiny houses. Wilson applauded the contribution of $3 million in private funds from Challenge Seattle to help pay for the village. Contributors included Microsoft, T-Mobile, Starbucks, John Stanton, and Terry Gillespie.
“Today is really about momentum. Today is about what it looks like when our city and region decides to act: 750 tiny homes!” Mayor Katie Wilson remarked enthusiastically. “A warm place, a lock on the door at night for peaceful sleep. This is not just about structures, but about that feeling of safety. It’s about us moving together towards something steadier, a model that we know works to bring people indoors quickly… in a way that is practical, a way that is caring, and a way that is scalable.”
“So many mayors ago and so many years ago… we actually went to the city building department and we said ‘What can we do that’s better than a tent or someone sleeping in a car or in a sleeping bag outside?’” Sharon Lee, Executive Director at LIHI reminisced. It was LIHI’s partnership with the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd and Nickelsville that became the first complete Tiny House Village in Seattle. “We were able to spread this model of tiny house villages across Puget Sound and across the country.”
In 2025, LIHI was able to shelter 1,663 adults and children in tiny houses in 17 villages in King and Pierce Counties.
“We all work pretty hard at producing these tiny homes,” said David Means, SFNW Board President. “To maintain quality, keep the assembly line moving, and to watch out for each other. Why do we do this? Because creating these tiny homes makes possible all the rest of the tiny home process.”
Volunteers at SFNW build tiny houses using a jig system. Their hard work allows LIHI to accumulate tiny houses in our storage yards, ready to be moved into new village sites. Each tiny home is hand-built by teams of volunteers who have generously donated countless hours of their time over the years in order to house our neighbors.
All SFNW tiny houses are created in the Hope Factory, a warehouse LIHI leases from the Port of Seattle. While anyone driving by would only see an ordinary warehouse from the outside, inside are dozens of volunteers working tirelessly nearly every single day to deliver vital shelter to our unhoused neighbors.
Everyone at LIHI is endlessly appreciative of all the work SFNW and its volunteers perform, and we are elated to celebrate this momentous occasion. Here’s to the first 750 houses, and to 750 more!